


dreams and darkness

by dancingwiththewind (highfaenyx)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, character study of a kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-28
Updated: 2019-11-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:34:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21593131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/highfaenyx/pseuds/dancingwiththewind
Summary: In the night, she dreams; behind her mask, the loneliness inside her burns as strong as when she was in the desert.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	dreams and darkness

In the night, she dreams.

She doesn’t need protection; she learnt how to wield the staff a long time ago; how to hit, hiss, and kick those inflicting pain on her. How to sustain that endless pool of rage in her bones, and still keep a smile on her face.

Rey doesn’t need protection - but it doesn’t mean she doesn’t want it. To be protected and to protect, to care and to be cared for, to understand and be understood.

She dreams of a warm body against hers; of a scent of steel and rain enveloping her and filling up her lungs, strong fingers in her hair, her hands grasping someone’s shoulders.

At times, she thinks this is a weakness, an emotional fault in her isolated mind of a hermit; she thinks, _I should be enough. Enough for myself._

She whispers these words in the night, rocking herself to sleep, putting her arms protectively around her abdomen. Sometimes, it works, and she manages to fall asleep before her loneliness creeps back into her mind; but mostly, all her whispers are just a blatant lie, and she wishes for nothing more than a pair of hands warming her body and her heart.

In the days, she lives.

When he takes his mask off, she expects something… else. A ragged lines of a villain, hideous and ugly features; instead she sees the most beautiful face she’s ever witnessed, big sad eyes and full lips, and while she is still scared - he is a Force user, the almighty Kylo Ren - she is not entirely sure her heart beats itself out of her ribcage out of the fear only.

That scares her more than any of his power does.

The touch of his mind is surprisingly gentle. Insistent, but gentle; she resists anyway.

And reaches the Force for the first time, taking a part of him in the process.

She cherishes his presence in her mind. Whatever this bond is - it lets Rey see him, see as he is, and Ben is beautiful, in and out. Beautiful - and broken, _but who is not_ , Rey thinks.

She is broken, too; perhaps that’s why she can navigate herself so easily around his pain, around his angles, and finds compassion in herself she did not know she ever possessed.

She used to believe that she was not alone; that her parents, whoever they were, would come for her, take her, embrace her.

But this was stronger; stronger than any belief that she has ever had, because this time she _knew_.

That as long as Ben Solo lived, she would never be alone; no matter how many light years they were separated by, how many stormtroopers and fighters of the Resistance would stand between them.

And it breaks her heart to see their paths to be so different.

She is cheerful and bright, in the light of the day, surrounded by soldiers and pilots and generals, because she is a hero, a Jedi, levitating rocks and wielding lightsabers. Rey doesn’t want to be a hero.

Luke was a hero once, too; _a legend_ , he told her, and all she saw was a lonely, sulking, desperate man with a faint shadow of hunger in his eyes.

In the end, _I am no different_ , she thinks.

Behind her mask, the loneliness inside her burns as strong as when she was in the desert, alone, and she is not sure - no, she _knows_ that they would never be able to take that intensity, were she to share it.

_He_ would, though, for she felt the same intensity burning in his veins. They would share, and share, and share, and revel in each other’s joy and pain, and heal each other - eventually.

Rey lies in the night awake, thinking of what could have come to pass, what never came to pass, and silently cries herself to sleep because the knowledge of what she (they) could have had cuts her soul in pieces more than any hope she had on Jakku.

Sometimes she almost regrets not taking his hand.

Sometimes she thinks she could have given anything - everything just to have one more moment: with her parents, with Han, with Luke.

With Ben.

She feels the rage silently sleeping in her bones awaken to her desire, and she closes her eyes. The temptation is harder to resist with each passing day, the whisper ever present in the back of her mind. She shakes it off. One of them has to keep their head above the water, and if the Force, or whoever is looking over this universe, has decided it to be her, she will.

She will try, again and again; she will be a light to his darkness as long as hope burns in her heart and her veins. She is versed in the art of waiting.

Failure happens - but it doesn’t have to be the end.

Luke Skywalker taught her that.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are welcome :)


End file.
